Welcome to a day in the life of a YouTube English teacher.
Good morning Eat Sleep Dreamers, it's about five thirtyish. The day has started. I'm editing
my latest vlog which is due to be up at about one o'clock today. There's still a lot of
work to do, that's why I've got up so early. So I'm going to try and do as much as I can
and then I'm going to have some breakfast. Alright I've done the bulk of my editing.
It was a very productive hour. It's now ten past seven, so I'm going to have my breakfast.
This is my favourite part of the day. Breakfast time, it's the reason why I wake up.
Alright my breakfast is made. I've made a bowl of porridge. There's bananas, there's peanut butter
some other good stuff in there, I'm excited to eat this. I'm also going to have a cup
of coffee. Every morning starts with a cup of coffee. Yeah just to tell you my routine.
So usually, today is a special day because I'm editing. But usually when I'm having breakfast
I like to check in on YouTube. So I'll go in and I'll have a look at what's happened
overnight. So I'll look at the views, I'll look at any comments that have come in and
I'll also go and check out Facebook and Instagram and see what's happening over there. See if
I've got any comments that I need to reply to. It's always really cool sort of waking
up and seeing what's happened overnight, it's always quite exciting.
Hey guys, right I'm
awake. I'm finally up. I've left my house. It's eight fifteen and I'm going to walk to
work. Now I didn't get all my editing done unfortunately. There's still some text to
put in, a bit of music stuff like that so I'm going to have to do that in my break time
in between my lessons. It's really cold today, it's January here in London and yeah it's
bitterly cold. On the cars there is a bit of frost but it's a beautiful sunny day. As
you can see, here's the sunshine. It's a really beautiful wintery morning here in London.
So I just wanted to talk you through what I'm going to do. So this morning I'm teaching
from nine until one. I've got an advanced class, I teach in a local language school.
I'm really lucky that I get to walk to work. It's such a joy to get to walk. I don't have
to get on a bus, I don't have to get on a train, I don't have to commute with everybody
it's just quite a peaceful start to the day. Usually what I'll do is I'll listen to a podcast
which is like radio but yo get to listen to it whenever you want. So it might be a podcast
about football or about business or language or it could be about anything really. And
it's a nice way just to start the day. Sometimes I'll have a bit of music instead maybe or
just nothing and just sort of get myself ready for the day. It usually takes me about fifteen
to twenty minutes to walk to work. Yeah it's a nice way to begin the day. So I've got my
advanced class from nine until one. They are a really nice group, really chatty, really
friendly and i love sort of pushing them quite hard especially with lots of new vocabulary.
I think at advanced level new vocab, phrases, idioms stuff like that is really beneficial
for them. So that's what we are going to do between nine and one. In between the lessons
hopefully I'm going to edit my video a bit more and that at one, if I've done it all,
I'll upload my video. If I haven't done it, then I'm in trouble. Because at two thirty
I have a private student, I have to travel to their house to teach them and then at four
o'clock I have another private student and I have to travel to their house to teach them.
It's a busy busy day. I've got all this teaching and I've got to upload a YouTube video as
well. I can do it! Just going to need your help guys. Now why am I filming this today?
Well I thought maybe it would be really interesting for you guys to see what my average day is
like. To be honest there is no average day, it's different every time. Some days I'm not
teaching in the afternoon, I have a bit more free time and then every day is different
to be honest but today is a busy one and I thought I'd bring you along with me.
Alright I've got to work and I'm just planning my lesson for nine o'clock. As I said it's
an advanced class and I'm using Outcomes advanced which is a fantastic book. Lots of wonderful
vocabulary. Ok so this book uses the lexical approach which is looking at language from
a vocabulary perspective. Showing the importance of learning vocabulary over grammar. I love
it, particularly at advanced level because that's what they need. They need new phrases,
new idioms, new language so yes Outcomes is what we are using. Today we are going to be
continuing on from yesterday. We were looking at cities, vocabulary to talk about cities
so I'm going to begin the lesson by revising some of the vocabulary that we learned yesterday
and then moving on from there. It's going to be a fun lesson I'm sure.
We are doing
a speaking activity right now. People are in pairs and they are telling each other their
stories about, they are describing cities that they have been to. So they are using
the language that we have looked at today for exaggerating and for emphasising. We are
working in pairs so I'm one of the group because there is an off number. So I have had to listen
to a story then I have had to pass the information on. People seem to be doing it pretty well.
Alright that's the first half of lesson done. So it's break time, usually I'd be hanging
out, having coffee or chatting to the other teachers. Unfortunately today I've got a video
to get up. I still need to edit it, so I'm going to be editing in my break time. I can
do this! I can do this!
Alright guys that's the morning done! I've taught my four lessons, they were a lot of
fun I enjoyed that. My advanced class are really talkative and they just want to learn,
so that's really great. When students are passionate about learning that makes my job
so much easier. I've also just caught a massive break. Literally as I was leaving my class
I got a text message from my private student saying that he wants to cancel the class today.
He has a meeting and he wants to move it to Thursday. Oh my lord! That's such good news
because that means I get extra time to work on my video for you guys which you can watch
right now. It's actually already out so you can check it just above. So yeah that gives
me a little bit of time to do the thumb nail and to do the whole sort of uploading process
on to YouTube. I'll show you that right now actually when I get home. So I'm walking home
right now and I'm going to make myself some lunch and I'm going to upload the video on
to YouTube so you guys can kind of join me whilst I do that.
Alright guys so as you can see I'm not at home. I ended up going to a cafe. As I was
walking home I was like do you know what I don't want to go home, I want to go somewhere
nice. So I've come to my favourite cafe which is near my house and I'm just going to edit
here. I've got one hour to edit and get this up before I go to my private lesson. So time
is tight but I think I can do it. Yes, I can do it. I've ordered a coffee and I'm going
to have some lunch here as well. So yeah, a lot to do in one hour. Ok my lunch has just
arrived, it looks amazing. So I'm going to take a little break from editing to eat this.
I've got smoked salmon on avocado toast with a boiled egg. Oh my god I'm excited. Ok, the
thumbnail is done. So now I'm going to download that and then upload my vlog to YouTube. Alright
it's up, it's out there, you guys can watch it. This is always a really exciting moment.
I love hitting that publish button and kind of sending my video out there for you guys
to watch and hopefully enjoy. It is always a slightly nerve wracking moment. You hope
that you've got it all correct, you haven't made any mistakes all that kind of stuff.
And then it gets really exciting seeing the views suddenly build up. Seeing comments come
in, that's when it gets really exciting. The moment that I get my first comment and someone
says like 'oh I found that really useful' that's what makes it all worth it. All the
early mornings, the long hours. As soon as someone is like 'that was super helpful that
was really useful' That is when I'm like ok I remember why I do this. So yeah it's up,
it's out there, I'm excited. So I'm going to finish my lunch, I'm going to enjoy my
lunch which is nice. I have about twenty minutes to enjoy it and then I'm going to run home
really quickly and then go to my private lesson. Alright we are back on the road and I'm walking
to my private student. So that was a quick hour getting lunch, uploading the video. The
video seems to be getting a good response which is really nice. People commenting and
liking it. Always nice to see. People saying that they are finding it useful. Yeah, so
I'm going to walk to the train station and then I've got to get a train about four stops
further out of London. This is always my favourite part of the walk to the train station. I get
to walk over Alexandra Palace high above London and you get amazing views of London. I can
see the Olympic stadium, I can see Canary Wharf, the financial district. I can see the
Shard, the City I can also see the Tottenham Hotspur stadium which of course is the most beautiful
building in London. Yeah, it's an amazing view up here, so that's always nice. See a
bit of London as you are commuting.
This private student I'm teaching is a one-to-one and I really enjoy teaching one-to-one students
because you really get a chance to develop their language and to work on the things that
they really need. So what we do a lot of in the class is conversation and then working
with his errors and his mistakes and giving him the language that he needs to say the
things that he wants to say. So let's say he wants to talk about his work. Well that's
fantastic because we can get talking, I can ask him questions and then from his communication,
from what he says, I can give him phrases and vocabulary that are useful. If he needs
a grammar structure to express what he wants then I can give him that and we can really
work closely with his English which is something that maybe is a little harder with a larger
group. Of course there are benefits with working in a classroom, you've got that communication
aspect with different people. Because there is so many people there are different ideas
coming, different mistakes that you can work with. Obviously people can learn from each
other in a classroom so different dynamic. I love having both. In the morning I can teach
in a class and in the afternoon I can teach one-to-one. I think both have their benefits.
But definitely I'm seeing a lot of progress with this student which is fantastic.
So the teaching day is done but the working day is definitely not done. I've still got
plenty to do. So I'm going to head home and I'm going to go and check out my YouTube video
that I posted today. See how many people watched it and to have a look at the comments. Now
I try to reply to as many comments as possible. I love the feedback that you guys give me.
It's not always possible to reply to every comment but I try to at least read every comment
and certainly to reply to as many as I can. So that's what I've got to do when I get home.
Then I'll have some dinner and then planning my next video. So you upload on Tuesday and
then Friday comes round really quickly so I need to think about Friday about what I'm
going to put up and what video I'm going to make so as soon as one video goes up the planning
for the next video starts straight away. Yeah!
Hey guys, so I'm back home and I'm back in front of my computer. And I'm going through
all your comments and I'm trying to reply to as many as I can. As I said before it's
always kind of cool to kind of see your response. To see how you engage with the video. What
bits you liked. Whether you are using the language in a practise sentence or something.
Yeah I love that stuff it's always really cool. So I'm going to go through as many as
I can tonight and then that will be it I think for the day. It's been a long day, it started
at five. It's now seven thirty. But it's been fun, I've really enjoyed it. And yeah I'm
getting to do what I love to do so that's always good. Anyway guys thank you so much
for coming along with me today on this journey looking at a day in the life of a YouTube
English teacher. I hope you have enjoyed it. Let me know in the comments below what you
think and yeah if you liked it I'll do another one at some point. Remember I've got new videos
coming up every Tuesday and every Friday so check them out and make sure you hit the notification
bell so that you don't miss a single video that I release. This is Tom, the Chief Dreamer,
saying goodbye.